Main Street Journal: Online Exclusive: Doc Holliday: Romney, Obama, and Gettysburg

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Romney, Obama, and Gettysburg
By: Ed “Doc” Holliday

Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Barack Obama will be the nominees of their respective parties and it looks like the Battle of Gettysburg once again. Gettysburg shoots like an arrow into the hearts of Americans everywhere. It sings off our tongues and rings through our ears when we say it. Gettysburg stings us when we think of what it took to save America 150 years ago. And the zinger for 2012 is the fact that the Battle of Gettysburg and this year’s elections have many similarities. A proven political winner with veteran political troops surrounding him is in the process of fundamentally transforming America just as, 150 years ago, a proven Confederate general invaded the Northern states with a goal of fundamentally changing America forever. But there are many other similarities, so allow me to tell you how and why America faces an election that compares to Gettysburg.

Gettysburg reaches back into America’s colonial past and extends forward to even today, touching everything American and just who we are. How fitting it was that Rick Santorum just a couple of weeks ago surrendered his bid for the Republican nomination in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Just as Santorum’s presidential dreams were suspended and the conflict for the Republican nomination ended, the battle for the White House has just begun. And no other election in history can be paralleled to the battle of Gettysburg better than the presidential election of 2012! Let’s begin to count the ways.

As the troops on opposite sides met on the outskirts of the little town of Gettysburg in July of 1863 neither side was really ready for the ferocious battle about to ensue. The Confederates came with an acknowledged leader who had just won a decisive battle at Chancellorsville. The Union troops were commanded by Meade who had just hours before taken over for Hooker who was leader before Burnside, Pope, McClellan and McDowell. Similarly, Obama came in with audacity as Romney assumed the reins after Santorum, Gingrich, Cain, Perry, and Bachman all took their turns polling at the top. The country is just now soaking in the fact that this new party leader named Romney is taking the reins of defending the party that aims to stop the anti-constitutional charge from the Far Leftists who want to actually bring all America under their progressive agenda. The Far Left has only token opposition in the places they rule without fear. States like California and cities like Detroit. Conservative ideas are ridiculed in these bastions of liberal power, and yet states like deep-in-debt California and cities like imploded Detroit are representations of what America will look like under complete Far Left leadership. The last Republican mayor of Detroit served in 1962.

For those who don’t appreciate the analogy of today’s President Barack Obama and the Civil War’s General Robert E. Lee, let me be absolutely clear that this observation has nothing to do with slavery or skin color but everything to do with bullying. Just as the Confederates wanted to bully the North into a peace treaty ending the United States of America, the progressive politicians led by President Obama want to ride rough-shod and trample the U.S. Constitution.

How? Well there was the ripping off of the bondholders in the auto bailout that gave money to the unions and took away money from the bondholders who were legally entitled to what was left of the bankrupt auto companies. But President Obama was just warming up because he has gone on to declare the Congressionally-passed, signed by President Clinton, Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and stated that he would not defend the law. If the so-called constitutional law professor wanted to declare a law unconstitutional then he is in the wrong branch of government! The executive branch enforces the law! But President Obama has forced through Congress the healthcare law which may be soon found unconstitutional. Again and again we see this president and his administration trampling on the Constitution that he took an oath to defend against enemies both domestic and foreign. Another first for this president was his defiance of the War Powers Act when he sent troops to Libya. Like a runaway radical this president has pushed through Far Left regulations and mandates that have left the nation stunned by his sheer boldness. The lap-dog media only sings his praises because for the most part they want him to be re-elected.

On and on the list grows—from his appointees in the EPA to the Fast and Furious problems at the DOJ. Only the fact that, as the Confederate States of America did not like the nation in which they were living and sought to change it by ending their involvement in it, so we see the Far Left today seeking to end America as we know it. Using words like ‘fairness’ to promote Marxist theory (“from each according to his ability, to each according to their needs”) we are seeing a President who is dividing the country with class warfare. His re-election team alleges a Republican war on women, a Republican desire to make the air and water dirtier. On and on the divisions grow. This is from the President who promised to take the best ideas, whether they were Republican or Democrat.

In fact, this President seeks to divide the nation just as General Lee wanted to divide the North by giving the Democrats during that era “ammunition” to sue for Peace. Is it any wonder that President Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, just said, “I think a lot of Republicans in Congress want to cooperate, know better, but they’re in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right that has dragged the party to the right.” The fact that Axelrod is equating the conservative wing of the Republican Party with terrorists tells us how much like a war this election will be. How sad that the President who won the Nobel Prize for Peace has sent his trusted friend, Axelrod, to call his political opponents terrorists even as terrorists are still killing our American men and women in uniform overseas.

Latinos will also play a huge role in who will be our next president. President Obama has made promises to the Hispanics of this nation that he has not kept. Latino concerns were not on the President’s top priority list when he could have pushed through comprehensive immigration legislation in his first two years. His re-election team does not seem to be worried that the president has thrown the Hispanic population under the bus when it comes to what he told them what he would do 2008. And just like the media would have America believe that Obama has the Latino vote wrapped up, that is not a forgone conclusion.

Latino Robert Sanchez and his brother have taken the initiative to start a new company, American Standard Playing Cards. He sells a deck with the cards bearing the principles of the Constitution. By using these playing cards people young and old learn how to keep our country free. Take Julio Lara, who as a teenager was brainwashed by the communists and he fought alongside Castro in the mountains of Cuba. After the revolution was won he witnessed first-hand the point-blank executions by bullets to the head in village after village. He subsequently revolted against Castro. He escaped to Venezuela only to later see liberty slowly die under the power of Chavez. His biggest fear today is that Americans are losing their liberties just as he saw liberty die first in Cuba and then in Venezuela. He is not an Obama supporter. He loves liberty too much. The Latino American Tea Party is working hard in the swing state of Florida to remind all Americans—but especially the Latino population—that freedom is precious and when your freedoms are systematically taken away one by one then, no matter what you get in return, you will one day suffer for losing liberty.

Whether it is the health care mandate, the job killing regulations coming down from the EPA, or the growth of government control throughout segments of the economy such as healthcare, automotive, student loans, banking—the list goes on and on. And the President is recruiting like no president ever has before. Just when Congress helped dismantle the corrupt voter registrations involved at ACORN, the Department of Justice sent out registration guidelines and even sued two states that did not follow those guidelines. These guidelines have reportedly established that every new food stamp recipient must register to vote or sign a form saying that they were offered the chance to register. The president and his political counterparts are counting on winning the majority of the new food stamp recipients’ votes come November. This gives a whole new meaning to Newt Gingrich’s statement calling the President our first “Food Stamp” president.

We are in the first phase of the campaign and this is like day one at Gettysburg. Day two will include the national party conventions and day three will be the final push to Election Day. It will be like a slow-motion Pickett’s Charge.

By the time we are seeing Pickett’s Charge—a deliberate and misguided Confederate mass infantry charge across open terrain on a well-defended Union position—you can believe that President Obama’s re-election team will be throwing everything including the kitchen sink at Romney and his forces lined up to defend the U.S. Constitution. Just as Lee wanted his cannonade to disperse the concentrated troops that he faced, many of the tactics of Obama will seek to set smokescreens to keep citizens from remembering his policies. They will try to focus the election on Romney and away from what Obama’s failed policies have done. No matter how hard the Obama re-election team will try to cover their troops, they will be like General Pickett’s troops—exposed. Obama’s team must march across an exposed field, because he has a record to bear. Armed with the truth of how Obama’s policies have been a disaster for rebuilding our economy, Romney’s folks should be able to repulse the assault by sheer numbers if Obama’s policies don’t improve between now and the election.

As this article ends I remind everyone that on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg there was ferocious fighting. It was troops from Minnesota who became heroes after General Hancock saw a weakening of the Union lines and the soldiers from Minnesota held that line with great loss of life until reinforcements could arrive. Over a hundred and fifty years ago soldiers from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Iowa and other swing states of the 2012 election rose to defend the U.S. Constitution. Will citizens in these same states rise up once again in November to vote to defend the U.S. Constitution from assaults from the Far Left? We shall see, yes, we shall surely see.

Remember Gettysburg. Go forth and vote.

(Ed “Doc” Holliday is a Mississippi tea party activist. You can read about more about the parallels between Gettysburg and 2012 election in Doc Holliday’s new book, Rock Splitting Politics. (See ad on right) His weekly Internet radio show, “Rock Splitting Politics,” can be downloaded at Web Talk Radio, where he keeps his listeners updated on what they need to know about this election.)

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